Síofra had a whole route planned. He showed it to her the next morning in her specs, but she had only a moment to glance over it before heading out the door.
“Why did you stay in this tower?” Síofra asked, leaning back and craning his neck to take in the brutalist heap of former containers. “We pay you well enough to afford one of the newer ones. This one has almost no security to speak of.”
“You’ve been watching me twenty-four/seven all this time and you still haven’t figured that one out? Corporate surveillance ain’t what it used to be.”
“Is it because your mother lives here?”
Hwa pulled up short. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“I only wondered because you never visit her.” He grinned, and pushed ahead of Hwa down the causeway.
His route took them along the Acoutsina. They circled the first joint, and Síofra asked about the old parkette and the playground. This early, there were no children, and it remained littered with beer cozies and liquor pouches. She told him about the kid who had kicked her down the slide once, and how nobody let her on the swings, and he assumed it had to do with her mother and what she did for a living. His eyes were not programmed to see her true face, or the stain dripping from her left eye down her neck to her arm and her ribs and her leg. She had tested his vision several times; he never stared, never made reference to her dazzle-pattern face. And with their connection fostered by her wearables, he probably never watched her via botfly or camera. He could spend every minute of every day observing her, and never truly see her.
They ran to the second joint of the causeway and circled the memorial for those who had died in the Old Rig. “Do you want to stop?” he asked.
It was bad luck not to pay respects. She knew exactly where her brother’s name was. Síofra waited for her at the base of the monument as her steps spiralled up the mound. She slapped Tae-kyung’s name lightly, like tagging him in a relay run, and kept going. Síofra had already started up again by the time she made it back down. They were almost at Tower Three when he called a halt, in a parking lot full of rides.
“Cramp,” he said, pulling his calf up behind him. He placed a hand up against a parked vehicle for balance. When Hwa’s gaze followed his hand, she couldn’t help but see the licence plate.
It was the one she’d asked Prefect to track. The one Hanna had disappeared into, last night. “I thought…” Hwa looked from him to the vehicle. “I thought you said—”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Hwa.” He smirked. Then he appeared to check something in his lenses. “Goodness, look at the time. I have an early meeting. I think I’ll just pick up one of these rides here and take it back to the office. Are you all right finishing the run alone?”
Hwa frowned at him. He winked at her. She smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m good here.”
He gestured at the field of rides and snapped his fingers at one of them. It lit up. Its locks opened. She watched him get into it and leave. Now alone, Hwa peered into the vehicle. Nothing left behind on any of the seats. No dings or scratches. She looked around at the parking lot. Empty. Still dark. She pulled her hood up, and took a knee. She fussed with her shoelaces with one hand while her other fished in the pocket of her vest. The joybuzzer hummed between her fingers as she stood. And just like that, the trunk unlocked.
Hanna was inside. Bound and gagged. And completely asleep.
“Shit,” Hwa muttered. Then the vehicle chirped. Startled, Hwa scanned the parking lot. Still empty. The ride was being summoned elsewhere. It rumbled to life. If Hwa let it go now, she would lose Hanna. In the trunk, Hanna blinked awake. She squinted up at Hwa. Behind her gag, she began to scream.
“It’s okay, Hanna.” Hwa threw the trunk door even wider, and climbed in. She pulled it shut behind her as it began to move. “You’re okay. We’re okay.” The vehicle lurched. She heard the lock snap shut again as the ride locked itself. “We’re okay,” she repeated. “We’re going to be okay.”
*
Hwa busied herself untying Hanna as the ride drove itself. “Tell me where we’re going,” Hwa said.
“It’s my fault,” Hanna was saying. “He told me not to talk to Benny.”
“Benny work at Skipper’s?” Hwa picked the tape off Hanna’s wrists.
“I told him I was just being nice.” Hanna gulped for air. She coughed. “I quit, just like he told me to, but Benny and I are in the same biology class! I couldn’t just ignore him. And Jared said if I really loved him, I’d do what he asked.…”
“Jared?” Mentally, Hwa kicked herself. She’d known he was on the hot list, but hadn’t chased down the lead any further. She needed Prefect. Why hadn’t she brought her specs? She could be looking at a map, right now. She could be finding out how big this guy was. If there was video attached to his assault charge. Where his weak spots were.